Before becoming a lawyer, Andrew helped found the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre and volunteered with the noted Indian environmental lawyer, M.C. Mehta, experiences that changed his understanding of what is possible through law.

In the following open letter to Minister McKenna, we call for a national framework that includes the accountability and transparency that will ensure that provinces take on their fair share of fighting climate change and that they are rigorous in figuring out how to achieve those goals.

Poor enforcement of environmental laws doesn't just hurt our environment, and communities that depend on that environment. It also hurts law-abiding businesses -- businesses that find themselves having to compete against counterparts who flout the law. But don't take my word for it; here's what a law-abiding businessperson had to say on that very topic.

Society as a whole saw jobs created, collected tax dollars and bore at least some of the blame, for the harm caused by both tobacco and asbestos. And yet this did not absolve the manufacturers of responsibility for the damage caused by their product. So yes, we are all responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, but fossil fuel companies are much more responsible.

In our view, these regulations allow the ministers to authorize a broad range of pollution with few limits or checks and balances. It is natural to fear that the federal government is preparing to abdicate its responsibilities to protect fish from pollution.

Before Bill 4, any research done in a park had to be "necessary for the preservation or maintenance of the recreational values of the park involved." But as we've recently learned, pipeline giant Kinder Morgan has, with a permit from the B.C. government, been conducting research in B.C. parks for their pipeline expansion project since November 2013, four months before Bill 4 was introduced.